Under Wraps (6 page)

We walked outside into the moist San Francisco air and stood on the curb, waiting for traffic to pass. Hayes had his hands in his pockets, his lips and forehead puckered as he thought.

“So explain to me again how the UDA operates. And what is it, exactly, that the Underworld Detection Agency detects?”

I shrugged. “We detect paranormal activity to some extent. And more or less, we detect who and what is traveling through the Underworld or becoming active in the other world.”

Hayes smiled. “The Overworld?”

I looked both ways and then stepped into the street. “Frankly, this world is rather wrapped up in itself. It doesn’t really recognize the Underworld as actually existing, so it’s pretty much just ‘the world’ up here. As for how we operate …”

Hayes reached out and grabbed my shoulder, his fingers digging into my flesh as he yanked me back and a rusted-out van zoomed past us.

“Whoa,” I said, my heart pounding. “That was close.” I looked at Hayes’s fingers on my shoulders as his grip softened, but he didn’t move his hand. “Thanks,” I said.

Hayes didn’t look at me, but he was smiling. He dropped his hand to his side, leaving a sudden cold spot on my shoulder where his palm had been. “So you were saying …”

“Right. How we operate … well, it’s a little like the Social Security office, I guess. Demons register themselves with us. Once you’re on the UDA radar, you’re entitled to all the perks of the Underworld—unemployment, workers’ comp, protection from labor and personal disputes …”

Hayes steered me toward the double doors of the Fog City Diner and paused. “Demons get workers’ comp? In case what? A vampire breaks a fang on a particularly stubborn artery?”

I rolled my eyes. “Very funny. The UDA just works to keep a sense of order and harmony in the Underworld. We allow demonkind a little protection from a regular world that really disregards them.”

“Until they scoop your eyeballs out.”

I rolled my eyes. “Can we just get something to eat now?”

We walked into the warm diner, and I inhaled the comforting scent of club sandwiches and too-crisp French fries, smiling. “Smells good,” I murmured.

Hayes nodded and held up two fingers to the woman behind the counter. She grabbed two menus and a couple of place settings, then beckoned for us to follow, leading us to an empty table by the window.

We slid into the booth and Hayes handed me a menu. He scanned his while I played with the laminated corner of mine, my stomach churning, my mind going a million miles a minute. Hayes looked up, eyebrows raised.

“What’s wrong? Oh, don’t tell me. You’re vegan or something, right? Fruitarian? Only eat orange things?”

I wagged my head. “No. Nothing like that. What’s a fruitarian?”

“Girl I dated in college …”

I looked up expectantly, but he just shook his head and went back to reading his menu.

“I guess I’m just a little nervous,” I said.

Hayes grinned at me—a wide, lady-killer grin. “Really? I couldn’t tell.” His cobalt eyes traveled to my hand, to the loop of red hair wound absently over one finger. I quickly dropped the lock of hair and sat on my hand.

“Nervous tic,” I said. “I hate it.”

“Actually, I think it’s kind of cute.”

My heartbeat sped up, and I sat on my other hand.

Hayes shrugged, scanning his menu again. “So what’s there to be nervous about? I’d tell you if you had spinach stuck in your teeth or something.”

I blew out a long sigh. “There’s a killer out there. Doesn’t that bother you even a tiny little bit?”

Hayes turned over his coffee cup, and the waitress came by, giving him a nod and sloppily sloshing coffee into his mug.

“Honey, there’s murderers everywhere.” He lined up three sugar packets and dumped them into his cup, clinking his spoon against the mug as he stirred. “It’s just another day at the office.”

“But these are different—and don’t call me honey,” I said, my voice a hissing whisper. “Eyeballs are missing. Blood is missing. People are being torn apart. You can eat when people are being torn apart?”

I looked up to see that the waitress had returned and was working on a piece of Hubba Bubba, blowing large bubbles and then sucking them in.

“Are you guys ready to order?” she wanted to know.

I gulped. Either she didn’t hear my comment, or I was the only one in the entire city worried about a supernatural predator hunting the San Francisco streets.

We placed our orders, and Hayes sipped his coffee, staring over the rim of his mug at me. “So what’s your story, Lawson?” he said finally. “How’d you end up a secretary at a place like the UDA?”

I rested my arms on the table, lacing my fingers together. “Sophie. Lawson sounds way too
Law & Order.
And, I’m not a secretary. I’m an administrative assistant. An executive assistant if you really want to get technical.” I sipped my water, pleased.

Hayes’s lip curled into another one of those delicious half smiles, and I reminded myself that this was business, and that when Parker Hayes wasn’t looking sexy and brash in his navy blues, he was kind of an anti-demon asshole.

“Sorry, of course—executive assistant. So, how’d you decide on pushing papers in the demon underground?” he asked.

“It’s amazing what you can find in the want ads,” I said, averting my eyes and tearing my napkin to shreds.

Hayes continued to eye me, and I breathed a little harder, pinned under his steady gaze.

“Well, first of all, I could get down there.”

Hayes sipped his coffee and shrugged. “So what does that mean? Lots of people can use elevators.”

“Nice. Theoretically, you can only get into the Underworld if you’ve got”—I bit my lip and glanced out the window, trying to choose my words carefully—“some supernatural in you.”

“What?” Hayes snorted. “You’re some kind of demon, too? I never would have thought….”

“Keep your voice down!” I hissed,

“Sorry. It’s just that you look so regular.”

“Awesome,” I said dryly, “regular. That’s what every woman wants to hear about herself. And no, I’m not a demon. Well, yes, I guess I am—sort of. I think.”

Our waitress came back, a large white plate balanced in each hand. She eyed me as she slid my salad in front of me, and I got a big whiff of grape-scented Hubba Bubba as she snapped a bubble.

“Can I get y’all something else?” she asked.

“No, thanks,” I said, smiling politely.

Hayes popped a French fry in his mouth with one hand and shook a bottle of ketchup with the other. “So what are you? A leprechaun?”

Anger roiled in my stomach, and I could feel my usually creamy white skin turning red. I dropped my fork. “I am
not
a leprechaun.”

“So? What are you then?” He cocked his head, looking me up and down.

“My grandmother was a mystic—a seer. But then she lost it.”

“Her power?”

“Her mind.”

Hayes chuckled, settling back into the booth. “How very Psychic Friends Network. You know, I’ve always thought that if those people really were psychic, they’d call me when I had a problem.” He grinned, enjoying his joke.

“She would have called you.”

Hayes pursed his lips.

“The palm reading, fortune telling—that was kind of her day job. But she had real powers. She was pretty well known in the Underworld for it. She could really see things.”

Hayes nodded but looked entirely unconvinced. “So, can you do it too, then? See the future and stuff?” He raised one eyebrow. “Can you read minds?”

I glared back at him. “I think I might be able to read yours.”

He laughed, shoveled another handful of fries into his mouth. “There’s that leprechaun spunk I like so much.”

I felt my lips go thin and tight. “I. Am. Not. A. Leprechaun. And no”—I wrapped my hands around my water glass and stared at the ice cubes bobbing inside—“I don’t have any powers. Yet. Or, maybe I never will. It’s kind of hard to tell. I’m working on it, though. I mean, there might be something; it just hasn’t happened yet. Anyway, after I graduated—USF”—I smiled, proud—“the only jobs open for an English major were paper boy or barista.”

Hayes leaned back in the booth and smiled kindly. “I think you’d make a great paper boy.”

I rolled my eyes, continuing. “My grandmother kind of talked me into the job initially—introduced me to Mr. Sampson and all. I thought it would be a quick thing, like a summer internship. You know, until I could write the great American novel or start teaching English in Spain. But as it turns out”—I shrugged—“I fit in really well down there, and I really like it.”

“Well, score one for the leprechaun.”

I resisted the urge to slug the smug grin off Hayes’s face.

“So where’s your grandma now? Pleased as punch you leash a dog like Sampson for a living, I’ll bet.”

I felt my muscles tighten, my arms going leaden under the anger. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, you know? Sampson is a werewolf, not a dog,” I said, working hard to keep my voice low and even. “And my grandmother passed away, thank you very much.” I blinked furiously, feeling the hot tears well, the growing lump choking my throat.

Sophie Lawson: tough chick or emotional invalid?

“Oh, hey.” Hayes handed me a napkin. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you …” He shifted uncomfortably. “What about your parents?”

I shrugged again. “My mom was a seer, too, but she hated what she could do. Sometimes—I’ve been told—it can get really hard to live with. Seeing all the things that people work so hard to keep hidden. It can take a lot out of you. All Mom wanted was a little normalcy. So, one day she met my father, a very normal professor of mythological anthropology at Berkeley. Nine months later I was here and dear old Dad was realizing that he wasn’t exactly cut out for fatherhood.”

“That’s rough,” Hayes said.

“Oh, he gave it the old college try, though.” I wiggled four fingers. “He stayed for four whole days after I was born.”

“Wow. Four?”

“My grandmother said he left because after four days, I didn’t show any signs of magical ability. I guess that’s what he was looking for in a spawn.”

Hayes stopped chewing. “Do you really believe that?”

“I believe that after four days I didn’t show any signs of the ability to change my own diaper. I think that was more bothersome. So, he took off. A little less than a year later my mother died.” I smiled wistfully. “Grandmother, again, went to the magical extreme: my mother died of a black heart—a love spell gone wrong. I tend to lean toward the slightly less magical explanation of a steady diet of Chicken Mc-Nuggets and a pretty solid family history of heart disease. But there isn’t any way of convincing Gram of that. Or there wasn’t.”

“I’m really sorry,” Hayes said softly. “But your grandmother raised you? That must have been good, right? She sounds like she really cared about you.”

“She did, and living with Gram was okay.” I gritted my teeth, my mind working: Every child should be raised in a house with a giant neon hand, palm highlighted with stars and hearts, in the living room window and a crystal ball in the dining room. Kids flock to children who are different and odd … and then beat them up.

“Sophie?” Hayes’s head was cocked.

“Oh.” I blinked. “Sorry.” I stabbed at a piece of chicken and popped it in my mouth. “This place is great,” I said, chewing absently, not tasting my food. “So, I spilled. Your turn. What’s your story?”

Hayes’s blue eyes touched mine, then flitted across my forehead, avoiding my gaze. “Nothing as interesting as your life,” he said. “I’m just a local guy, been around this city for … forever, pretty much. I’m just your basic, run-of-the-mill cop. Boring.”

I nodded, but he didn’t continue. “Oh.”

Hayes had a handful of French fries in his mouth before he stopped chewing and stared at me, panic in his wide, cobalt eyes. He swallowed slowly, little bits of salt glistening on his lips.

“You know when you said you could get down to the Underworld?”

I nodded, sipping my water.

“Well,” Hayes continued, “if you have to be …
you know,
to get down to the Underworld … how come I was able to?”

“I don’t know. I guess I just assumed you were dead.”

Hayes gasped. “You think I’m dead?”

The waitress’s head snapped up as she passed again, and I smiled politely, watching until she was out of earshot.

“You think I’m dead?” he repeated in a desperate whisper.

“Okay, undead, whatever.”

“I’m not!” Hayes was indignant. “Feel this.” He wrapped his palm around my wrist. “See? Flesh and blood.”

“Okay.” I pushed a crouton off my plate and stabbed a piece of lettuce. “Sure.”

“No, seriously.” Hayes was standing up and pushing me aside, sliding next to me in the booth. “Feel.” He grabbed my hand and slid it between the buttons of his navy blue shirt, so my fingers rested against the soft cotton of his undershirt. He pushed my palm flat, his hand over mine.

I resisted the urge to ogle. His chest was firm and taut and wonderful, and his heart thumped underneath my palm—warm—and very much alive.

“So you’re not dead,” I said, trying to squelch down my giddy goose bumps and control the tone of my voice.

Hayes’s voice was thin, his eyes big, terrified. “Then what am I?”

“A big girl.”

Hayes’s eyes flashed and I sighed. “You can get down as a normal person—Nina calls ‘em breathers—if someone who can go down sends you down. They’re able to temporarily loosen the veil on the breathers.” I went back to stabbing at my salad, and glanced through my lowered lashes to see a look of utter relief flood across Hayes’s face—and then he panicked again.

“The chief is a demon?” he asked. “Is that how he knows Sampson?”

“I don’t know if the chief is a demon,” I said, mouth full of salad. “He and Sampson met in college, just before Sampson was bitten. They were college roommates.”

Hayes’s eyebrows rose expectantly.

“Sampson was bitten and changed into a werewolf in college. Now, can we just have lunch and then get to work? The sooner we crack this case, the sooner you can be done with the Underworld and go back to believing that the things that go bump in the night are just harmless human rapists, sadists, and murderers.”